It Hurts Down There

Christine Labuski

Description

How does a woman describe a part of her body that much of society teaches her to never discuss? It Hurts Down There analyzes the largest known set of qualitative research data about vulvar pain conditions. It tells the story of one hundred women who struggled with this dilemma as they sought treatment for chronic and unexplained vulvar pain. Christine Labuski argues that the medical condition of vulvar pain cannot be adequately understood without exposing and interrogating cultural attitudes about female genitalia. The author's dual positioning as cultural anthropologist and former nurse practitioner strengthens her argument that discourses about "healthy" vulvas naturalize and reproduce heteronormative associations between genitalia, sex, and gender.
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Prologue: A Fourteen-Foot-Tall Vagina

1. Insinuation: A Biocultural Condition

2. Examination: Clinical Interpretations of Vulvar Pain

3. Accumulation: The Materiality of Absence

4. Manifestation: (Un)conscious Presencing

5. Integration: Coming Together or Falling Apart

6. Generation: Novel Morphologies

7. Evaluation: Concluding Thoughts

Epilogue: Collaboration

Notes
References
Index

Sujets

• Sociology
• Human biology
• Physiology
• Anatomy

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 31 août 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438458878
• Langue: English

Extrait

It Hurts Down There
It Hurts Down There
The Bodily Imaginaries of Female Genital Pain

CHRISTINE LABUSKI
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2015 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu
Production, Diane Ganeles Marketing, Kate R. Seburyamo
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Labuski, Christine, author.
It hurts down there : the bodily imaginaries of female genital pain / Christine Labuski.
p. ; cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-5885-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-4384-5887-8 (e-book)
I. Title. II. Title: Bodily imaginaries of female genital pain.
[DNLM: 1. Vulva—United States. 2. Vulvodynia—psychology—United States. 3. Shame—United States. 4. Social Stigma—United States.
5. Vulvodynia—ethnology—United States. 6. Women’s Health—United States. WP 200] RG261 618.1′6—dc23 2015001460
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS

List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Prologue: A Fourteen-Foot-Tall Vagina
1. Insinuation: A Biocultural Condition
2. Examination: Clinical Interpretations of Vulvar Pain
3. Accumulation: The Materiality of Absence
4. Manifestation: (Un)conscious Presencing
5. Integration: Coming Together or Falling Apart
6. Generation: Novel Morphologies
7. Evaluation: Concluding Thoughts
Epilogue: Collaboration
Notes
References
Index
FIGURES

Figure 1. Vulvar pain nomenclature
Figure 2. A clinical vulva
Figure 3. The cotton swab, or “Q-tip,” diagnostic test
Figure 4. A modified vestibulectomy
Figure 5. A full set of vaginal dilators
Figure 6. Muscles of the pelvic floor
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T his book has benefited from the wisdom, insights, and bodily experiences of far too many people to mention by name—from the women on whose bodies I first learned to do pelvic exams, and from whom I learned to talk about sex as a health care professional, to the members of my dissertation committee, who grew increasingly comfortable uttering the word “vulva” as we discussed my work. But without the following people, places, and institutions, It Hurts Down There would have remained a discussion between a far smaller group of people than the circulation of a book makes possible.
Not a word of this book could have been written had nearly one hundred women with vulvar pain refused my queries, my curiosity, and my presence in their lives. You are brave and magnificent, and I am grateful beyond measure for the imaginaries you shared with me. I hope that each of you recognizes at least some small part of your experience in the pages that follow and that this book might help you to share that experience with a slightly wider world. I am also indebted to the physicians, physical therapists, nurses, and medical assistants with whom I worked for thirteen months. Their cooperation with and support for my research and the space they made for my nonafflicted body in their exam rooms, surgical suites, and treatment sessions provided this project with a richer set of layers than I had dared believe was possible.
My time in the vulvar clinic was first made possible through a Sexuality Research Fellowship, administered by the Social Science Research Council, and I am forever indebted to Diane di Mauro for that early and pivotal support. My research was also supported by the University of Texas at Austin, in the forms of a Liberal Arts Graduate Research Fellowship; a David Bruton, Jr., Graduate School Fellowship; a University Co-op/George H. Mitchell Award; and a Women’s and Gender Studies Dissertation Fellowship. I am grateful, too, for the enthusiastic welcome and support I received from the Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Rice University, where this project thrived under the benevolent direction of Rosemary Hennessy. Other compatriots in Houston from whom my work benefited include Samar Farah Fitzgerald, Melissa Forbis, Colton Keo-Meier, Emma Kate Lyders, Brian Riedel, and Angela Wren Wall. At the University of Arkansas, where the manuscript gestated while I taught (and taught and taught), I want to thank Rob Brubaker, Lisa Corrigan, Kirstin Erickson, Dave Fredrick, Jennifer Hoyer, Kelly O’Callaghan, Lindsay Puente, Laurent Sacharoff, Raja Swamy, and Ted Swedenburg for their friendship and generous support of my ideas. Finally, this manuscript might never have made it to press had Virginia Tech’s Program in Women’s and Gender Studies and Department of Sociology not given me the time, support, and financial assistance that it needed in its final stages. I especially want to thank Aaron Ansell, Rachelle Brunn, Toni Calasanti, Tom Ewing, Laura Gilmann, Anthony Kwame Harrison, Bernice Hausman, Sharon Johnson, Ann Kilkelly, Minjeong Kim, Neal King, Sarah Ovink, Anthony Peguero, Katy Powell, Petra Rivera-Rideau, John Ryan, Manisha Sharma, and Barbara Ellen Smith for their encouragement and collegial support. I also owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Saadia Rais, Meagan South, and Rayanne Streeter for their important contributions to the manuscript.
At the University of Texas at Austin, Kamran Ali and Pauline Turner Strong worked together to give this project its initial shape; I am enormously grateful to them for making me a clearer and more critical writer and analyst. I also want to thank Deborah Kapchan for introducing me to critical body studies, as well as Laura Lein and John Hartigan for their contributions to the dissertation. Austin colleagues who made their indelible marks on these pages include writing group comrades Melissa Biggs, Claudia Campeanu, Alice Chu, Liz Lilliott, Jessica Montalvo, Apen Ruiz, and Guha Shankar, as well as early cheerleaders Alisa Perkins and Lisa Schergen. Can Aciksoz, Sergio Acosta, Jenny Carlson, Beth Bruinsma-Chang, Dan Gilman, Elizabeth Hawthorn-Leflore, Jennifer Karson-Engum, Ritu Khanduri, Shanti Kulkarni, Ken Macleish, Mathangi Krishnamurthy, Brandt Peterson, Rachael Pomerantz, Mubbashir Rizvi, Leela Tanikella, Teresa Velasquez, Halide Velioglu, Mark Westmoreland, and Casey Williamson round out an extraordinary group of colleagues who enhanced my every minute in the Department of Anthropology.
At State University of New York Press, I want to thank Beth Bouloukos, Rafael Chaiken, and Diane Ganeles for seeing the manuscript through to completion; I also want to thank two anonymous reviewers whose careful readings and commentary shaped a much stronger version of the manuscript. Claire Insel and Clair James are deeply appreciated for their expert and timely editorial ministrations.
I have two kinds of family to thank, the one with whom I share a name and the one that has sustained me in my long years away from them. The Labuskis are an amazing bunch, and I am so grateful for all they do for me, and for each other, in the wake of my physical absence. Though anthropologist has been a somewhat murkier career path than the one in nursing that preceded it, they have kept pace with and helped me to celebrate my erratic successes. Other family, who have housed, fed, clothed, nourished, listened to, and basically propped me up any time it was in order, include the Biggs-Coupal household, Genevieve Buentello, Lora and Matt Brown, Andrea and John Kelso, Lori Nickels, Brittany Phillips, John Toole, John Van Voorhies, and Erin Von Feldt. I cannot imagine my life without the delightfully steady hand and companionship of Kathleen McCarthy, who has literally seen me through it all . And for everything in between, and everything that spills over the edges; for making me laugh and making me think; for caring about and caring for; for compromise and mutual respect; and for more comfort and joy than I could ever have asked, I want to thank Nicholas Copeland. I am forever lucky that you have my back.
PROLOGUE
A Fourteen-Foot-Tall Vagina

I n June 2014, a young American man, visiting the campus of Germany’s Tubingen University, got himself wedged inside a stone sculpture in the shape of a vulva. The piece, titled Pi-Chacán (roughly, “making love” in Quechua) and commissioned by the university from artist Fernando de la Jara for $173,000, stands fourteen feet tall and has flanked the campus’s Institute of Microbiology since 2001. Sensing a rare photo opportunity, the young tourist decided to climb inside the vulva’s opening, never doubting his ability to exit the sculpture once his friend had captured his image. The idea lost considerable charm for both young men, however, when it became necessary to enlist emergency personnel—twenty-two firefighters working for several hours—in order to extricate the student from Pi-Chacán .
Unsurprisingly, this genital tale immediately went viral (they say you can’t make this stuff up); also not surprising, given that most of my social network is aware of my research interests, my inbox and Facebook wall were quickly populated with several versions of the story, allowing me to quickly skim—and later peruse—both the reporting and the comment threads that proliferated steadily throughout the day. Most of the news accounts were matter of fact: the articles I read were succinctly reported, and all contained a basic version of the events that had transpired. And though the headlines ranged from titillating (“Giant Vagina Sculpture Traps US Student in Germany”) 1 to vaguely esoteric (“Thoughts, Freud? Vagina Sculpture Traps US Student”) 2 to downright cheeky (“It’s a Boy! Student Rescued from Vagina Sculpture in Germany”), 3 none were as salaci